Turkish scrap imports declined sharply in Dec '14: TUIK

ANKARA (Scrap Monster): According to the latest data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), the total scrap imports by Turkey during the month of December 2014 declined sharply by nearly 32% from the previous month. The scrap imports during the month were also down by 15.6% when compared with Dec ’13.

The country’s scrap imports during Dec ‘14 totaled 1.29 million tons. Turkey had imported 1.53 million tons of scrap during November last year.

The largest scrap exporter to Turkey during December 2014 was the US. The US exported 258,000 tons of scrap to Turkey, constituting one-fifth of the total Turkish imports during the month. The imports from the US were down by 14.93% during the month over the previous year. The second largest scrap supplier to Turkey was Belgium with 193,000 tons, up by 4.63% over the year. In third place was Russia with 156,000 tons. The scrap imports from Russia declined by 14.1% when matched with Dec ’13.

The total value of scrap imports by Turkey during Dec ’14 amounted to $434.15 million. The import values witnessed sharp drop of nearly 40% over the previous year.

The cumulative scrap imports by the country during the entire year 2014 totaled 19.07 million tons, down marginally by 3.3% when compared with the previous year. The value of imports during the whole year 2014 totaled $7.15 billion.